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The Swiss parliament's decision in 2006 to open the last mile was a key event in the evolution of the Swiss telecoms market. It granted Swisscom's competitors full unbundled access to the copper-wire subscriber connection, cabling for leased lines, and high-speed bit-stream Internet access (within 4 years). Unbundling the last mile is an important step towards the full liberalisation of the Swiss telecoms market and is expected to intensify competition among providers.

The sector will continue to have to grapple with declining prices. It will need to respond to this challenge not only through cost-related measures, but also through innovative offerings that add value for telecoms customers and reward them accordingly.

As fixed network and mobile communications increasingly converge with Internet and television, multimedia communications will become a key success factor. This trend is accompanied by a massive increase in demand for high bandwidths.

Internet telephony is growing at a slower rate than many experts anticipated. Indeed, in terms of the stability and availability of the voice service, Voice over IP (Voip) is barely able to keep pace with classical telephony.

Generally speaking, competition in the Swiss market will increase. The winners will be those providers that succeed in delivering attractive products and services to residential and business customers and achieve long-term customer loyalty through high quality of service.